Q&A with Caroline Klibanoff

Caroline Klibanoff is a singer/songwriter from Atlanta, Georgia – an American Studies major at Georgetown University. The roots and inspiration of her beautiful music and lyrics are embedded with classic American literature and values.

I recently did an e-interview via social networking with the talented, and free-spirited friend Caroline. Although it is lengthy, I chose not to cut any of it. She has many interesting things to say, and a story well worth being heard. Here’s Caroline uncut.

Myself: How did you end up writing music?
Caroline Klibanoff: I don’t feel like I “ended up” writing music, exactly, it’s an ongoing process for me that I’m still changing and discovering- but I started as a writer. Even as a kid it always seemed natural to me to be writing constantly, taking notes on the world, putting things in my own words. I’ve been playing guitar since about the 8th grade, and wrote my first real song—that I performed and haven’t changed the arrangement since—in 10th grade, it was “Sweet Seventeen” and I had been mulling the idea over in my head for a few weeks, had a few lines down. There was an open mic night at school so I came home, wrote the rest of the verses til they were just how I wanted them, and set it to simple chords, and performed that night. It didn’t seem foreign to me at all, the process was exactly the same as how I had always written poetry. Since then, though, I feel much more serious about music, and a lot of that comes from my inspiration in music and literature—somewhere around 15 or 16 I fell in love with Jack Kerouac and the whole Beat generation for so many reasons, but above all was their absolute dedication to their craft. Everything they did was in the name of the pen. And I read a lot about Kerouac’s process and that “by age 21 he had already written a million words and knew what he wanted to do…” So I sort of adopted that idea of chronicling this world, being observant and seeing everything in that meaningful writer’s light, and eventually setting it to music.

Take us through your songwriting process. How exactly do you write songs?
For me the lyrics are easy, only because I’ve accumulated so many pages of lyrics sans music that whenever I get a catchy riff I have a few things to sing with it already. As for actually writing the lyrics, it almost always starts as an image or a phrase, rather than an idea—usually it’s a few feelings and images and historical events that link together for me, so my writing is a little metaphysical in that sense. I’ll give you an example.

Last summer I visited Paris and got to see Jim Morrison’s grave in Pere Lachaise cemetery. Then I went to Memphis and Graceland and saw Elvis’s grave, as well as a lot of family history and burying places. And then I saw Jakob Dylan in concert in Atlanta, and the look in his face when he performs just really struck me, seeing that in the same frame as this huge guy in the front row wearing a “Bob Dylan 2007 Tour” shirt…well I’ve always found it fascinating to look at children of famous parents when they follow in the “family business.” I just felt for the guy. I mean, he’s on stage singing “I was born in the summer of Sam/smaller and sooner than planned/in the spitting image of a man/raised by wolves on the fat of the land.” He’s telling us this, and we’re still asking for his father’s autograph. So all of these ideas about inheritance and gifts that can be curses and living in a shadow and what it means to see a famous burial ground—these all came together in “Everybody Has Their Debts to Pay” (which is only roughly recorded right now). Those are the kind of songs I write. And that’s how I write them. Mostly by brooding.

Have you hit writer’s block, yet? If so, how did you overcome it?
Definitely- in two different ways. The first thing I noticed was that once I started writing lyrics, in verse form, so often, I could no longer write poetry like I used to. It didn’t come naturally, and forced writing is usually pretty ugly, so I haven’t written poetry in quite a while. I’m a little sad about that. I think it will come back some day. The other time was last fall, when despite being in a new city with lots to see and experience, I felt no real emotion or inspiration to be creative, and that made me nervous. Everything immediately changed, though, in October when I headed to Union Station to catch a train to Richmond to visit a friend—suddenly I was in motion again, and as soon as I was on the train everything started flowing again and I couldn’t stop writing. So there’s something to be said for motion and travel—it was honestly like a valve had opened up.

What are some of your most prominent influences? I hear you kinda like Bob Dylan?
A little bit…No, really, I’ve been an obsessive Dylan fan for a while now, and there’s no use denying it. Like every other Dylan fan, I personally feel that I am not like every other Dylan fan, but therein lies the paradox…really though, you shouldn’t be writing songs without some Dylan influence. I’ve been through a lot of musical phases so my tastes are pretty diverse, but there are some artists that never really fade away—Van Morrison, Tea Leaf Green, Wilco, Bruce Springsteen, the Dead. I like anything honest, simple or orchestrated, with emotion. Phosphorescent’s cover of Willie Nelson’s “Can I Sleep in Your Arms” is lyrically simple, but the music is so so beautiful that it breaks your heart. I love songs that make me cry. Or Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” which actually chronicles the story of America, set to a Bach melody—how could that not be inherently appealing? I think my own music draws on a lot of the singer-songwriters I listen to, but aside from Dylan, I don’t know that you can tell, because I don’t have a band…I need a band.

Where do you go to seek inspiration?
I can always pick up Robert Penn Warren and go wild. Or really any of my favorite books, usually American literature, because it synchronizes so many feelings and history in the same way I try to—Kerouac, Twain, Vonnegut. Civil War history, the Book of Mormon, whatever I’m reading in school I’ll make notes on, not for the class, but for what it means to me, if it means anything. Or traveling. I don’t usually go right to human interaction—my inspiration will come from literature or art or history or some little thought popping into my brain while I’m walking down a crowded street, and then whatever relationship, interaction, emotion messes I’m in at the moment will seep into the lyrics without me really noticing until later.

Do you think the music world is shifting emphasis towards the single as opposed to the album?
No, not at all. I think the only bands that can make it “big” have to put out a solid album that draws a lot of acclaim. Especially for new bands—Vampire Weekend and Fleet Foxes are nearly household names now, because their albums drew so much praise and attention, but neither had a huge standout single. I can’t think of the last single that came out where the artist became popular without backing it up with a great album…I guess everybody knows “Single Ladies” but nobody is calling Sasha Fierce their favorite new artist, or even their favorite re-incarnation of Beyonce.

It is harder to sell an album than a single, especially since it’s so easy to buy one song that you love for 99 cents, but I think that’s a good thing—it forces artists to make their entire catalogue worthy, because if they only have 2 great songs out of 10, people are not going to pay the nine dollars for the whole CD. And you get people discovering bands because they heard a song in a movie or TV show—I just saw “I Love You, Man” and I was surprised to see I’ve played most of that soundtrack on my radio show. So you know those producers are in tune with finding some of the best lesser-known songs on popular albums.

As an artist, what’s your opinion on leaked albums & downloading them in advance?
If it works for you as an artist, I don’t really have a problem with it. I think music can never be free, just like quality journalism—who would work for free? But music can and will be freely shared and that can be a beautiful thing. It is art after all, in the sense that people will make it even without any other end in sight, other than the creation of the piece itself. If the artist leaks it, it’s their choice and I think it can help boost album sales and get their name out there. For an up-and-coming artist like me, it’s not a big deal either way, but I’m going to put out as much stuff as I can as soon as I can, holding back not because I’m saving it for an album but because I want to improve it before I put it out there. If fans are leaking an artist’s album, well, I think that’s a testament to their popularity—and it can only raise the hype.

What do you hope to achieve with your music? What is the one thing you want listeners to walk away with hearing your music?
I want them to feel something. I am not a fan of the ‘art for art’s sake’ idea, I think you have failed as an artist if you’re producing something meaningless. Even if, like Dylan, you dodge all meaning, once you produce something—once you put it out there—it’s there for anyone to take and make it into a feeling. So when I write these lyrics and I’m singing about me in the first person, I wouldn’t want listeners to think about me, but about themselves. That’s what I’ve always done with music anyway. You don’t listen to Jackson Browne’s “These Days” because you think it’s sad he’s “been out walking.” You listen to it because you identify with it, or want to, or have at some point “been out walking” yourself. Or even with someone like Bon Iver, it’s not the lyrics you identify with so much as the feeling the music evokes. As long as I get an emotional rise out of someone, I’m happy. And I try to do this in my lyrics by drawing on images and historical ideas that move me personally.

For me, I have always wanted above all to give back what I got from music—some of that indefinable feeling you get when you hear a song and you just think “Wow,” or get excited when you hear it on the radio, or you’re mesmerized by a rhythm or just sigh or make a sound like you just got punched in the stomach because of some lyric that cuts you that deep. I would like to give some of that back. It’s a long process and all trial-and-error, but I believe it’s completely worthwhile.

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For more Caroline Klibanoff: visit her blog, Myspace, or iLike page.